Demolition advocate softens her position

After first vowing to universally support the demolition of nuisance properties if she wins a seat on New Orleans' Neighborhood Conservation District Committee, Lakeview resident Rita Legrand last week softened her position, instead promising to take a more measured approach.

View full sizeRita LeGrand, left, and Denise Thornton were photographed in March 2008.

Her rhetorical shift, however, didn't satisfy some preservationists, who object to her appointment to the panel that considers demolition requests in many of the city's older neighborhoods.

The council's Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday deferred a vote on Legrand's appointment to its Sept. 9 meeting. No explanation for the delay was offered.

Legrand, whose squeaky-wheel persona has influenced the public debate over blight since Hurricane Katrina, said two weeks ago that she would maintain her clarion call to "tear 'em down" if the council confirms her appointment to the 13-member panel.

"You can't expect anything but votes for demolition from me, " she said. "Honest to God, all you can expect is me tearing them down. I'm not going to hold my tongue, and you can quote me on that."

Acknowledging that her comments had "raised some controversy, " Legrand pledged in a later email message to visit all properties on NCDC dockets to "assess their value" and to gauge whether neighbors living around them have had to contend with "rats, raccoons, squatters, weeds and filth."

"I will certainly vote to demolish if returning citizens are impacted with these problems, " she said.

Legrand said she has been "appalled" at the number of buildings that the NCDC did not approve for demolition even after city officials found evidence of blight.

While calling for a system that would allow potential buyers to register their interest in blighted structures, Legrand said that "if there is no plan in place to rehabilitate the blighted property or the money to do it, it should be demolished so as to not bring down the value of the neighborhood."

"It is much more feasible to hope that neighbors would care for a vacant lot than have to deal with a blighted structure next door with the accompanying health issues, " she said.

Despite Legrand's stated change of heart, Brad Vogel of the local office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation said he remains concerned about her "initial, unfiltered statements."

"We're not pushing for a preservationist on the committee, " he said. "We're simply looking for someone who will look at each property judiciously and with an open mind. ... There's no one out there that votes to preserve 100 percent of the time, and it would be absurd to have someone who would vote to demolish 100 percent of the time without looking at the context of each individual property."